How do the Eastern Orthodox interpret this verse from Psalm 69:3?
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Step 22.35 from the Ladder of Divine Ascent offers an interpretation:
- One who had the gift of sight told me what he had seen. ‘Once,’ he said, ‘when I was sitting in assembly, the demon of vainglory and the demon of pride came and sat beside me, one on either side. The one poked me in the side with the finger of vain-glory and urged me to relate some vision or labour which I had done in the desert. But as soon as I had shaken him off, saying: Let them be turned back and put to shame who plot evil against me,3 then the demon on my left at once said in my ear: Well done, well done, you have become great by conquering my shameless mother. Turning to him, I made apt use of the rest of the verse and said: Let them be turned back and put to shame who said to me: Well done, well done.4 And to my question: How is vainglory the mother of pride? he replied: Praises exalt and puff one up; and when the soul is exalted, then pride seizes it, lifts it up to heaven and casts it down to the abyss.’
http://www.prudencetrue.com/images/TheLadderofDivineAscent.pdf
Upvote:4
In writing about this particular verse in his Exposition on the Psalms, Augustine understands that those who tell us "Well done, Well done" are flatterers, whom he classifies as a different sort of persecutor:
Two are the kinds of persecutors, revilers and flatterers. The tongue of the flatterer doth more persecute than the hand of the slayer: for this also the Scripture hath called a furnace. Truly when the Scripture was speaking of persecution, it said, Like gold in a furnace it hath proved them (speaking of Martyrs being slain), and as the holocaust’s victim it hath received them [Wisdom 3:6]. Hear how even the tongue of flatterers is of such sort: The proving, he saith, of silver and of gold is fire; but a man is proved by the tongue of men praising him [Proverbs 27:21]. That is fire, this also is fire: out of both thou oughtest to go forth safe. The censurer hath broken thee, thou hast been broken in the furnace like an earthen vessel. The Word hath moulded thee, and there hath come the trial of tribulation: that which hath been formed, must needs be seasoned; if it hath been well moulded, there hath come the fire to strengthen. Whence He said in the Passion, Dried up like a potsherd hath been My virtue [Psalm 21:15]. For Passion and the furnace of tribulation had made Him stronger.…
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